Nairo Quintana knew what was coming. Up ahead, the final ramps of the climb above Livigno to Mottolino stiffened to a cliff-like 19%. A little further down the mountain, Tadej Pogačar was closing in upon him at a prodigious rate of knots.
The chances of Quintana making it safely ashore before Pogačar washed past him were so slim as to be non-existent, but he stuck to his course as best he could in the closing kilometres of stage 15 of the Giro d’Italia.
